Raymond Julian Laborde, I was born on August 18, 1927, and died on January 17, 2016.
He was a department store owner and a Democratic politician in his native Marksville in Avoyelles Parish in south Central Louisiana.
His parents were Dr. Emeric M. Laborde (1901–1969), a Marksville dentist, and the former Minnie L. Neck (1899–1994).
After he graduated from Marksville High School, Laborde enlisted at his father’s alma mater, Roman Catholic-affiliated Loyola University in New Orleans, when he was 18, he played on the 1945–1946 Loyola national championship basketball team.
The now store owner, graduated from Loyola in 1949 and then launched his Raymond’s Department Store at 317 North Main Street in Marksville.
He was later a captain in the Louisiana National Guard.
Raymond was the mayor of Marksville from 1958 to 1970 and thereafter served five terms from 1972 to1992 in the Louisiana House of Representatives.
Laborde was a gubernatorial floor leader, Speaker Pro Tempore from 1982 to 1984, and in his last full term the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Following his election without opposition to a sixth House term in the 1991 non-partisan blanket primary, he immediately resigned to become commissioner of administration in the fourth and final nonconsecutive term of his childhood friend, Governor Edwin Washington Edwards.
Laborde married the former Nellie Sanchez and had five children, in 1951,
Raymond Laborde passed away at 88 yrs old.